


What to Be

by Wxlves



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 21:30:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14923187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wxlves/pseuds/Wxlves
Summary: Sort of a character study of Alec Lightwood because I have a lot of Feels(TM) about himAlso, happy pride month everyone! This little ficlet is about being proud of who you are so I hope y'all carry that through your life, whether you're gay, straight, black, white, trans, etc.It's rated Teen and Up because I say the f-word at one point and idk if that's general-audiences-worthy, other than than it's very tame





	What to Be

_ Be perfect.  _ That was his mantra that he repeated to himself, day after day after day.  _ Be everything they want you to be _ . After hours of working himself ragged in the training room he'd go to a secluded part of the library and study runes, flipping cards over with scarred, bandaged hands until they blurred with sleep. That was when Izzy would pad softy in on bare feet and take the cards from his hands, usually replacing them with a glass of water and some food. Sometimes he thinks he’d have accidentally starved without her. 

 

_ Be better than you are.  _ Alec had accepted that he would never be perfect. Instead, he vowed to be better, always strive for more. That was what he'd always done anyway, wasn't it?

 

When Jace comes, he's like the sun. Bright, impossible to ignore. He seems to do everything perfectly effortlessly, Maryse and Robert adore him. After a long while it becomes clear that Alec, as much as he tries, will never be as good as Jace. He makes a new mantra…

 

_ Be like Jace.  _ And he tries, he really does. He tries to fight like Jace (he can never get him on his back, however close he comes). He gets so far as to try fully acting like Jace. Jace, after all, doesn't have feelings for his own  _ male  _ parabatai. 

 

One night he slips out of the Institute, fending off questions from Izzy as he does so.  _ Where are you going?  _ Out.  _ Out where? _ Just out.  _ When will you be back? _ Answered with a vague shrug. He pulls the hood of his dark sweatshirt up and makes his way through the rain to the club. Just before he left he’d sketched the rune for  _ trust  _ on the back of his hand. The bouncer didn't even blink when he informed him he was 21, and neither did the bartender who slid him a drink. 

 

He turned off the sulking attitude that hung over him like a rain cloud, drawing on what he’d seen Jace do. Brooding was attractive, sulking was not. It wasn't very long before a young woman, likely around 19, slid onto the stool next to him with a coy smile. She waved away the bartender and turned to Alec. He almost refused her, but wasn't this what he'd come for? Flirting turned out to be easy when it wasn't someone you were truly attracted to, though he continually tried to turn his mind to her large, dark eyes, her wide hips, her full mouth. A hint of a tattoo peeked out from the neck of her shirt, right over her spine, and while it was enticing, it wasn't nearly as much as it should have been. When she fully leaned in for a kiss he finally paused, admitted to her that he’d never kissed anyone. She seemed surprised, ( _ a handsome guy like you?)  _ but took it in stride and it had little damper on the night. 

 

They were soon outside the club, in a dark, sketchy alley with his back against the damp bricks. The rain had stopped. Her hands were on his stomach, rucking up his shirt with one resting dangerously near the waist of his pants, before he decided he couldn't do this. 

 

Pulling back, he started with an apology. He didn't mean to give her the wrong idea, it was all a mistake. To his horror it all comes spilling out in an involuntary rush. He doesn't say a word about angels and demons (how could he?) but everything else comes out. The way the brown and blue of Jace’s eyes make his breath catch and it  _ shouldn't.  _ His mother’s distasteful sneer at a gay couple they'd seen on the street. It all comes out in a Niagara Falls of words that Alec wishes he could put back in his mouth, but she just looks at him for a beat, then laughs. She isn't laughing  _ at  _ him, he doesn't think. 

 

After a moment she reaches out, smoothes down his shirt, smiles, takes his hand and tells him sincerely, while looking in his eyes, that there's nothing wrong with him. She also adds that she hopes he figures it out sometime, figures out a way to be happy. The strange interaction was concluded with a pat to his chest and a smile, before she sauntered away. Alec was left in the alley, a little dazed. The rain had begun again. 

 

_ Be  _ ~~_ perfect  _ ~~

_ Be  _ ~~_ better  _ ~~

_ Be yourself  _

 

Magnus was a paragon of the ideal of being oneself. He wore what he wanted, did what he wanted, and didn't give a fuck about what others said. Alec eventually decided he could use more of that in his life and so he turned, away from Lydia, away from his parents, away from the Silent Brother. He turned instead towards Magnus, towards a future, towards happiness. 

 

Maybe, if he ever saw that girl again, he'd tell her how everything turned out. 


End file.
